Step 8: The Finishing Touches

For a long time now a friend of mine wanted to gave a nice pair of wooden glasses. The prices are steep (200 Pounds a pair and up). But what actually drove us to build the following project is the fact that we both like doing stuff like this, stuff we find on instructables and other DIY sites.

So why not make our own wooden sunglasses?

You can download the Illustrator files from down below (oketi.ai) in case you want to work with our model. But we recommend following the steps and creating your own based on the glasses (and lenses, respectively) you find.

Step 1: Buying Guide

Bill of Materials:
(read the whole steps before going shopping or looking through the house for any object from the list as we give details that will help you find the best solution for your needs)

1 pair of cheap sunglasses
1 pair of glasses hinges (we recommend the one in the picture)
1 piece of wooden panel of about 6in by 6in (or 15cm by 15cm); its thickness depends on the that of the lenses (ours was about 0.12in or 3mm); find a texture you like as this is what you will see
2 pieces of nice looking wooden panels with the thickness of 0.4in or 1mm and the same size as the one above (this would hold the lenses and body of the glasses together)

Tools:

1 piece of A4 size paper
1 pencil
1 needle
1 pair of pliers
1 piece of sandpaper (grit size 120 or above)
1 piece of sandpaper (grit size 100 or just use the same size as above)
1 tube of glue (that sticks to both wood and metal)

Find a pair of cheap sunglasses you like. They need to be cheap just in case you might break them while trying to get one of the lenses off (You will learn more about this in Step 2). Look for ones that have flat lenses to keep things simple. For the first pair we did, we used ones that weren't so flat and we had to glue the lenses to the frame. They don't look that pretty as the frame is flat and the lenses are a bit curved.

We actually wanted to buy glasses hinges but we were offered for free a handful of hinges at different glasses repair shops. I would recommend you search hinges like the one in the third picture from above as it is easier to install on wooden glasses (see Step 7 for further details). But any hinges will do.

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<p>I love BreakWaters bamboo sunglasses.</p>

<p>Hi, how do i engrave my name in the side of the sunglasses (legs)? can i use a burn tool or hot stamp? thanks</p>

<p>Hi Guys, i can't see the template's download link, can you help me please? Thanks.</p>

<p>Too late, but here it is...<br><br>http://www.instructables.com/files/orig/F0I/CMVY/H2WEJNVR/F0ICMVYH2WEJNVR.ai</p>

Hardest parp is to add lenses. Any advantages for it?

Hey Guys, <br> <br>I see a couple of you have questions about installing the lenses. My suggestions, after making over 100 pairs of wood sunglasses, use a dremel tool to cut the fitting for the lens on the inside of the frame. Then place the frame in a bowl of water and microwave it for 4 or 5 minutes. This will cause the wood to expand giving you the chance to place the lenses in, then let the frame dry out and they lenses will be in nice and tight. I did this for a guy I know that runs a wood sunglasses company at www.hatcheteyewear.com

Hey, I find these instructions very usefull, thanks for sharing, I am trying to do the same and trying to use the plastic curved lenses from some fake plastic glasses, please help me out on placing the lenses to the frame, only part that confused me really is the lense installation, if you can explain this process a bit more detailed I would really appriciate, thanks

Where did you get your wood?

Hi Memominator, <br /> <br />great instructable. I just have one question, similar to the one put up by Soupraok. Just a little confused on the attaching the lenses part. <br />Is your inner frame just a little bit larger than the outer? and hence you are gluing the actual lens from the outside part of the sunglasses to the little bit of wood sticking out from the inner frame? <br />I'm just slightly confused about that. <br />Also any suggestions on if I didnt want to go the 3 ply way? and just wanted to create a solid frame and then try and attach the lenses to it? how would i manage that? <br /> <br />Hope you can help!!

Hi memominator,<br> In fact, you can skip <em>&quot;step 5: Cleaning the Burn Marks from the Laser Cutter&quot; </em>if you use masking (paper) tape.<br> That's what one can see in my instructable about &quot;Laser cut foldable wooden glasses&quot;.

Hi bobiebob, <br> <br>We got the hinges from some local glasses repair shops. Like we said in Step 1 (just above these comments), the shop keepers gave us more than a few of different types of hinges. And all for free. They said they couldn't put a price on that. And they were really impressed with our project as well. We got really good tips from them on how to build the glasses, by the way. <br> <br>At first we thought about laser cutting these as well, and maybe pin them with some pin. But we thought that would be a pain in the a.. :)

Dude. Awesome. I think I may need to try this soon. Wish I had access to a laser cutter though. That complicates this project a bit, but it would be totally worth the work.

Hi 21GeeOff21, <br> <br>I am really glad you like it so much. <br>Now related to what you said about access to a laser cutter, I think you could also try to cut it with a CNC machine and if you have or know someone that has hands that don't tremble that much you might also try this. <br> <br>We made some tests before actually ending up with this solution. You could also try using some hand tools and see it you can manage something. Try for example to draw a circle on a wooden panel and see if you can cut it as good as possible with what tools you have in the house. If you like the result, you can try making these glasses as well.

I'm pretty good with hand tools, so that's probably going to be the way I go. Just slightly worried about evenness of the frames as well as their probably delicacy while working on them. Should be doable and I'm excited to get this done over some future upcoming weekend.

So, you laser cut the frames three times? I am alittle confused... Great instructable other wise! I really want to make these!

Hi Soupraok, <br> <br>Thanks for pointing that out. I changed some things in Step 3 and 4 so that it is not confusing anymore, hopefully.